The answer you get by any SEO expert on keeping your readers faithful is -have great content! Although writing ‘great content’ is easier said than done, we can use a few simple tools to keep our readers on board with additional content to our own. In this post we will show the use of a few simple widgets that can enhance our blog’s content.
The first advantage of widgets is that they are easy to install and use. You don’t have to be a software designer in order to install a text widget on your site or blog. The second advantage is that most widgets can be customized in size, color and style to fit your blog in an elegant way. In this post I”ll recommend a few content-related widgets, that add relevant content to your readers in addition to your own original content:
Twitter Search Widget – There is no doubt about the impact tweets have on the web. over 50M users tweet daily billions of tweets, why not share the relevant ones for you with your readers? Instead of adding a twitter widget of your own tweets, add the search widget and cutomise it to your blog topic.This example is a search widget on ‘Ipad’
Twitter, one of fastest growing social media tools in 2009. One of the popular uses is promoting content through Twitter. In this post I’ll explore the possibilities of using Twitter with automatic and manual tools.
The first and not recommended option for Twitter users when promoting content is manually tweeting every time you post a blogpost, video, podcast. This is not recommended, especialy when most bloggers post more than once a week at their blog, FaceBook, LinkedIn,etc. and upload a video to YouTube every now and then. You would usually like to tweet on most of that. Luckly, today you can add your Twitter account to most of the existing platforms.
In our last post about networking via linking in blogs, we’ll discuss the highest level of linking adding to the blogroll. Contrary to all the other methods of networking through links, this is a static link, that appears in ALL the pages of your blog.
Adding a fellow blogger to your blog roll is a big step in your relationship with the person. When you add such a link, the link appears in all of your blog’s pages, and every casual user will see it. This is much more significant than linking to the blogger in a post. Read more…
Your blog can be utilized for networking, especially by linking to other bloggers – your potential connections. In two previous posts, we’ve discussed two methods of linking: a short link post and “linking by the way”. Both methods discussed linking to a single post. This time, we’ll explore a different approach – linking to the whole blog.
Linking to the whole blog means linking to the home page. The main drawback of this method is the lack of focus. Your readers aren’t directed to specific content but to a person.
The web is rich with ‘How To’ guides. I also read some of these articles and posts every now and then. You can probably find endless blog posts on ‘how to network ‘ online. I chose to publish here the first official ‘how to’ post to be on 5 things you should try NOT to do regarding your network. Remember, we all learn from mistakes, why not learn from others’ mistakes?
Don’t miss opportunities – When does that big opportunity come? You could never know. In order to avoid missing opportunities, there’s only one thing to do. Take part in activities related to your business and personal life as mentioned here before. Any occasion or person you meet, could easily become a great opportunity for a big client or a new contract, or finding the perfect candidate for a job your hiring for.
Then again, some meetings just bring up too many bad memories
Don’t force your business – Your product is great, I’m sure of that. But try to understand the event you’re participating in. Timing is everything (along with a good product,creative marketing and some luck…). Sometimes you might just have one opportunity to introduce yourself to someone relevant to you - don’t blow it. If you speak about your business in the wrong place, you might be considered rude and maybe even boring. From my experience, always introduce yourself first as a person, an individual. Don’t talk about your business straight away. People like to connect with people, not companies. Start by a short introduction about yourself. People will remember you but they will seldom remember a company name. If people will remember you it doesn’t matter which business it is, They would be interested in YOU.
Linking to a fellow blogger can sure contribute to healthy networking. In the introduction post to this issue, we outlined four ways of linking for networking, and last time we took a dive into writing a link post. This time, we focus on a better way of linking, by doing it “by the way”.
This type of linking method isn’t that complicated. You write a post that relates in one way or another to what someone else wrote. It’s better to focus on something that you would write about anyway. And while you’re writing your post, you link to your fellow blogger’s post when you relate to the topic he wrote about.
This method is the best way to link, and you can repeat it as many times as you wish. Here are the main advantages:
Using links in blogs is very useful for networking. In the initial post post about this matter, we’ve briefly discussed 4 ways of linking for networking. In this post, we’ll dive into the first method – a link post.
When I talk about a link post, I’m referring to a very short post, which is usually not longer than 100 words. This kind of short post focuses solely on the link. You can look at such a post as a road sign. It briefly tells you where to go.
Using links in blog posts is very common – you often cite sources to prove your point or quote an article that you’re referring to. Linking to other people’s blogs is also very valuable for networking purposes. Here are 4 ways of linking.
Why link?
Linking to a fellow blogger draws his attention in a positive way. In his blog dashboard he sees an incoming link from you, and he also sees incoming traffic. He also may get new readers to his blog, readers that came from your network.
This a gesture of good will that is taken positively. It can lead to having him thank you via your blog, or perhaps by a personal email. So, a link is good way of igniting a connection.
The best and most straightforward way to utilize your blog for networking is commenting on other people’s blogs. Here are a few tips for commenting.
Maintaining a blog is an excellent way to present yourself on the web. Contrary to social media sites, a web log enables you to control the design, write how much you want and set the agenda.
Having your own domain name also enhances your presence on the web and makes it easier to find you via search engines.
So my blog helps me present myself, but we’re here to talk about networking, right?
The best way to communicate with a blog is commenting on other blogs. If you wish to communicate and connect to another person who has a blog, head there and comment on one of the latest blog posts.
